If we planted an apple seed, how many of you would believe that we would actually get an apple tree?

If we squeezed an orange, how many of you would believe that we’d actually get orange juice?

If we visualize an abundant flow of prosperity flowing through our connection with Divine Substance, how many of you would believe we would actually see a manifestation of prosperity?

Why is it so easy to believe, without doubt, that apple seeds produce apple trees, and oranges produce orange juice — but so difficult to believe that divine Substance produces everything we ever need in terms of our supply? Maybe it has something to do with what we have actually seen and experienced, versus what we have been told, but haven’t actually experienced.

This truly is the foundation of Faith!  In John 20:29, Jesus said to Thomas, “…because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.”

Believing even when we have not seen: that’s faith. But we think it is really important to recognize that Faith is a powerful essence which we can develop and grow. We get critical of ourselves, and beat ourselves up, when it appears we don’t have the faith we think we should. But look at how you handle other growth areas in your life.

If you decide to learn to play the piano, do you sit down and expect to play Mozart perfectly on your first sitting? If you decide to take up golf or tennis, do you expect to walk in and hit the perfect drive or land the perfect serve on your first lesson? If you decide to take up ballroom dancing, do you expect to go out on the dance floor and do a professional-level routine your first day out? Of course not! Whenever we take up a new skill or hobby, we realize there is a learning curve, and we go in expecting — and allowing — ourselves to be bad before we get good! We know we will go through a period of seeing our ability grow, as we willingly put in the time to practice and learn. And we also discover that with each thing we learn, there is another level to tackle. There’s always more to learn. Even professionals work with coaches, and continue to refine and perfect their skills, always pushing the envelop and discovering new and better ways to do things in their chosen field.

Why should our development of our Faith faculty be any different? So here’s what you need to know about faith. First of all: You never have no faith! That’s a convoluted sentence, isn’t it? But think about it. Faith is one of the Divine powers inherent within each of us. It is our responsibility to quicken or strengthen it. So we are really being incorrect when we say, “I lost my faith or I don’t have any faith.” You cannot lose your faith — you might just have forgotten how to use it. The comforting knowledge is that your faith is always there, just waiting to be developed.

Emilie Cady, in her masterpiece Lessons In Truth, talks about the different levels of faith. From her work, we have created a kind of continuum of faith, which helps us identify where we are in a certain situation—and also helps us recognize the Truth of where we can be. Here’s how it works:

We begin with HOPE. Hope takes a lot of flack in spiritual circles as a kind of cop out, but we want to go on record saying hope is an important element on our spiritual journey, because hope provides the stimulus to keep someone moving forward when otherwise they may give up. It’s kind of like our training wheels! And when we don’t have a really strengthened Faith faculty, hope is the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps our journey going in the right direction! You hear people say things like, “Don’t give them false hope.” We personally believe there is no such thing as false hope. There are lies, and wishful thinking, but if there is hope, it is real and powerful and affirming.

So why don’t we just want to operate at the hope level? When we work from a basis of hope, we tend to live in a fearful state, concerned that we may or may not receive. And in the Hope state, we fall into the habit of seeing our affirmations, dream boards, and visualizations as magic bullets. If we don’t say it just right, or create it perfectly, we won’t manifest the result. But it’s a start, and we’ve all been there (at different times in different situations, we may even revisit!)

We want to move up the Faith Ladder, moving into Blind Faith.  Blind faith is where we move forward, instinctively feeling that wherever we are, God is, and all is well. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and we don’t know how or why, but we just believe things will work out. This Blind Faith is higher than hope on our continuum, because it is based on Truth, but we may find ourselves having to reassure ourselves often that it will work, it may be hit and miss, and we may question it often when we don’t see the results we expect as quickly as we expect them. But the important thing is that we persist, and continue to hold strong to the Truth we believe and use the tools, even if we aren’t sure why. Blind faith is kind of like magic — it is only magic until we know how it is done! As we grow and learn …

We are able to move to the higher level  of Faith—Understanding Faith. This is where we know and understand that there are spiritual laws as immutable as physical laws. For example, we know that the law of gravity just is, and when someone is jumping off a building, the law does not question who the person is, what job they have, or how much money or power they possess. The law operates as it operates. If the person jumps, they fall. They will have a hard, maybe fatal landing, or if they chose to have the right equipment, they will experience an amazing planned adventure. It wasn’t the law’s decision — the law operated. The people involved knew the law, and chose how they would use it!

Once we realize that spiritual laws operate the same way, we move into that powerful level of Understanding Faith, where we can be just as certain that when we apply spiritual laws, we are assured of the results that will follow. And that brings us to one other similarity between our apple seed and our orange analogies: you have to do something to get the desired  result.

To quote Emilie Cady): “One of the unerring truths in the universe is that the supply of every good always awaits the demand. Another truth is that the demand must be made before the supply can come forth. (You could have a bank account filled with money, but the only way to access it is to request a withdrawal.) To recognize these two statements of Truth and to affirm them are the whole secret of understanding faith—faith based on principle!”

When we operate from Understanding Faith, we can say, “We will have the funds and resources necessary to  move forward with this project” with as much conviction as we say, “We will squeeze this orange and get orange juice!”

As you move forward on your spiritual journey, recognize it is a process of growing and developing your Faith Quotient — Faithing it till you make it through practice:

• affirming the Truth of what you know,
• denying any power to doubt,
• moving forward claiming the good that is yours by right of consciousness!
• And become aware! Bless the inflow and outflow of everything in your life, knowing that it is good.

Our abundance, inner peace, and joy is here, right now, right in front of us. We can know it, because Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly!” And He directed us, “Ask, believing you have received…” We can KNOW, without any doubt, that we can Faith it till we make it as we walk the spiritual path on practical feet!

Has everyone mastered the First Pillar of Prosperity – Demolition? Once we’ve demo’d the things that are no longer serving us, we are at a point where we can start focusing on Pillar #2: Definition.

In the show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which we used as a metaphor for our pillars, it is interesting to see what happens once they complete the demo. The team creates a design plan, where they have defined what the new home will look like. They begin with “big picture” ~ and then they get more specific, focusing on individual rooms. Each designer takes one or two rooms, and puts their attention there. The specificity of each room is based on really understanding the family … their “ESSENCE.”

The same is true in our expansion of Prosperity Consciousness. We need to define specifically what prosperous, abundant living looks like — for us. For example: Imagine you have been given the opportunity to plan and take your ideal vacation. What would it be? What do you think the chances are that everyone reading this article would give the same answer? Slim to none! Each of us has our own idea of what that perfect vacation would be … and those images are vastly different!

We wouldn’t let others force their favorite vacation on us — but how often do we allow others to force their definition of prosperity and success on us? For example, we had a colleague who got a great job at a Fortune 100 company, doing the technical, nerdy, computer work he absolutely loved! Guess what happened? He did his job so well; he was rewarded with a promotion into management, where all of a sudden he had to work with people instead of technology. He hated it, but couldn’t get back to what he loved because it would “ruin” his career!

Right about now, you’re probably expecting us to say that Pillar 2, Definition, is going to be some kind of goal setting message. We do believe goal setting is a very useful process, but for his process, we want to “notch it up” to a more spiritual approach. Definition, from a Prosperity Consciousness perspective, is based on our Unity Principles, and is the next logical phase after Demolition.

You see, goal setting is focusing on things we want to achieve — and that’s okay. But in Matthew 6:33, Jesus the Christ gave us the real formula for our Definition: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” That’s the best goal-setting plan we can offer! To go a little deeper in strengthening our prosperity consciousness, there are actually three questions we need to ask — and answer in order to move through the Definition phase. They are:

• Who am I?
• What is my purpose?
• What is the ESSENCE of prosperous and abundant living for me?

The first two questions are easy to answer — and we can help you with them by giving you Truth principles to wrap your mind around. The third one is more individual – and is different for each of us. What we can do there is give you a process to help you clarify it more clearly.

For this article, let’s look at that first question: Who am I?

It is so important to remember: You are God expressing Godness as you. We could just leave it at that, but we’re thinking you may want to work a little on this one!

This week, spend some time becoming aware of how you talk to yourself.

Would you go into prayer and say, “Dear God, how could you be so stupid?” Probably not! Yet whenever you look in the mirror, and say, “How could I be so stupid?” that is essentially what you are doing! So here’s your adventure for the week: Become consciously aware of how you talk to yourself, and be sure that what you say is worthy of speaking to God. When you find yourself saying belittling things, immediately say “DELETE!” and replace it with a positive phrase.

The next level of this first question is realizing that what is true for you is true for all: each of us has that spark of divinity within. So — how are you talking to and treating others? Practice the Namaste technique: “I behold the Christ/the Divine in you. I see you at your highest spiritual best.” It literally transforms the way you react to others — and affects how they react to you!

A story is told by a woman from Philadelphia, PA, of running out of the drug store where she’d gone to pick up a prescription, only to find a police officer standing at her car, ticket pad in hand. “Oh, no, please don’t give me a ticket! I forgot to put money in the meter – but I’ll move right away!”

The officer responded, “I wasn’t going to give you a ticket – that’s why I’m standing here – to be sure you don’t get one.”

Unsure, surprised, and somewhat puzzled, the woman murmured “Thanks.”

“You don’t remember me, do you?” the officer continued.  “I remember you! I went through a difficult time in my life, and ended up homeless for a while. You treated me like I was a real person whenever you passed by me, and you always had a kind word to say. This is my way of saying, Thanks!”

Matthew 25:31-46 tells the story of the king who said, I was hungry, and you fed me; thirsty and you gave me drink;  a stranger and you took me  in; naked and you clothed me; sick, and you visited me… people asked when, and he replied, “Just as you did to the least of these, you did it to me.”

To expand your prosperity consciousness, begin with the first question of Pillar #2: Definition.  Be clear in defining yourself as God, expressing Godness as you.

DELIGHT

At last, we are finishing our series focusing on the Four Pillars of Prosperity! We wrap up with the third phase of our Fourth Pillar: Delight. Thus far, we’ve looked at ways you can Delight in all that you have, and Delight in all that you give. This week:

Delight in all that you receive:

Think about a gift you gave to someone recently. Recall your excitement in selecting it (or making it), and how you felt as you wrapped it up and delivered it. Now, imagine that you received no acknowledgement at all. You know, there’s nothing worse than giving something, and not feeling a sense of appreciation on the part of the one you gave it to. It breaks the energy of giving.

Now think about the worst gift you ever received. That gift that wasn’t “you” — was not what you really wanted — created a sense of real disappointment in you. Now think about the person who gave it to you. Imagine how they felt in picking out the gift (or making it); the excitement they had in giving it to you. How did you respond when you received it?

Think about a compliment you received, that you negated and threw back at the giver! Think about offers for help, that you have glibly refused. When you do not receive with delight, you cut off the cycle of giving and receiving and you put a kink in the prosperity flow into your life.

Sometimes receiving with delight is the toughest challenge of all — especially when we find ourselves in a place of need, where we have to take help from others. But if we can just remember that in receiving with delight, we are actually helping those who are giving — and we are keeping that Giving/Receiving Principle alive and active in our lives!

Charles Fillmore said, “It has been found by experience that [people] increase [their] blessings by being grateful for what [they have]. Gratitude even on the mental plane is a great magnet. When gratitude is expressed from the spiritual standpoint, it is powerfully augmented.”

When we are living from a Spiritual Consciousness of Delight, regardless of the situation we are facing, whatever we need flows to us by divine grace.

There is a great story about a zoo that had just acquired a kangaroo. To accommodate their new acquisition, they built a 10-foot high fence. To their surprise, the next day they found the kangaroo outside the fence, jumping around. So, they extended the height of the fence to 15 feet. The next morning, there was the kangaroo, outside the fence again, jumping around joyfully. So they built a 30-foot fence ~ and the kangaroo out again!

As you know, zoo animals talk to one another! The giraffe asked the kangaroo, “How tall do you think they’ll have to make that fence to keep you inside?” The kangaroo replied, “I don’t know! Maybe 1,000 feet, if they keep leaving the gate unlocked!”

That’s a great metaphor for our Prosperity Consciousness! We too often focus on the problems, when all the time, the gate is unlocked, and our prosperity is there for the claiming!

We encourage you to walk through that gate, and hop joyfully around, experiencing abundant prosperity in every area of your life! Practice the Four Pillars of Prosperity: Demolition; Definition; Declaration; and Delight ~ and you will live life more abundantly!